


Borrowed Warmth

by thenewbuzwuzz



Series: Spike's ice-skating dates [1]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: 1890s, Clairvoyance, F/M, Foreshadowing, Gratuitous poetry references, Ice Skating, Kittens, London, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-25
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-09-26 20:22:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9920822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thenewbuzwuzz/pseuds/thenewbuzwuzz
Summary: Spike and Drusilla went ice skating in Hyde Park in 1895. I think this is approximately what it looked like.





	

**Author's Note:**

> double_dutchess said on sb_fag_ends on Livejournal: "Can't you just see [Spike] going skating with Drusilla around the turn of the century?" I could.
> 
> Warnings:  
> There's Spuffy foreshadowing, because I'm the kind of person who would do that to pre-series Sprusilla.  
> Dru's clothing doesn't believe in science.  
> Spike's views on corsets aren't my own.

Spike has finally, finally escaped Angelus and his rubbish and borrowed Drusilla for one whole night. He can only borrow her, and it stings, but tonight, they’re here, together, just the two of them, and they’re going ice skating. Of course. He’s out of practice since he was turned, but it doesn’t matter. How hard can it be with preternatural grace and instinct?  
  
The Serpentine stretches ahead of them, crisscrossed by thousands of intersecting loops. “So many paths, all twisting and turning,” Dru says with a frown before she sits down on the shore and calls out, “Here, kitties!”  
  
“What is it, pet?” Spike asks, kneeling on the ice to screw skates to Dru’s boots. “Are there cats under the ice?”  
  
Dru nods. “So many itty kittens. One of them is just like you, my Spike.”  
  
“Is that so?” He switches to the other leg.  
  
“He has the bluest of eyes and the reddest of dreams. He’s a great hunter now, and all the fish fear him.”  
  
With that, she steps onto the ice and laughs like a child. Any bruises to Spike’s backside and ego are worth it to see Dru like this, in her element. Who’s he kidding, though? All the elements are hers. On ice, Drusilla leaves the last of nature’s laws behind. She weaves and whirls through the shoals of human skaters weightlessly, as if carried by some invisible gale. Other ladies navigate around her like sailing ships, all that rigging keeping them stately even through turns. They’re wearing corsets, the dimwits. Well, so’s Drusilla, but that’s because she really doesn’t need to breathe.  
  
The cold wind nibbles on Spike’s face and fingers (and doesn’t that give him ideas), but they’ve had some nice toasty snack vendors on the way, so he’s reasonably sure they’re not actually going to freeze solid. As for the rest, he has more important things on his mind. Like the way Drusilla’s short skirt swings right above her ankles, the fur trimming caressing her legs. A bloke could get used to the view…  
  
She catches his eye and smiles secretively, then, still spinning, raises one leg higher… and higher… Spike is suddenly grateful to Darla of all people for getting some wide “walking” skirts for herself and Dru. For “walking”, read “dinner chasing”. And, apparently, ice dancing: the cast of _Giselle_ has nothing on Drusilla. They couldn’t go in endless circles like this, for one; neither could they take a fellow’s head clean off if he got too close to that glinting blade on her foot. Spike grins and moves closer.  
  
The idlers on the shore start to applaud and whistle. There’s jeering laughter. Spike stares down whoever was getting rudest and returns to watching the show – it’s too good to waste time on re-educating idiots. Drusilla is crouching on one bent leg now, spinning even faster, it appears. “Bloody continentals,” someone mutters.  
  
She straightens gracefully, flushing with borrowed blood, and accepts applause and assorted noises like the queen she is. And then, she comes to him. She singles him out in the crowd, and it’s still a miracle like the first time she chose him.  
  
“Hush, don’t tell anyone,” she says, “we’re not in Kansas yet.” He locks that one in his memory with the rest of the evening and gathers her in his arms: a nest for his magnificent albatross.  
  
“Spike?” she says.  
  
“Yes, my love?”  
  
“Can I borrow you for a while longer?”  
  
He’s not certain what she’s on about, but he never did need a special reason to tell her that he’s all hers, that she’s his one and only love, his bright star, his enchanted forest of symbols, the queen of the ice elves, she is. She smiles and buries her face in his coat even as she talks ciphers about someone else waiting to burrow into him.  
  
“Oh, I’ll burrow into you alright,” he says automatically, hands questing for flesh beneath layers of fur and cloth.  
  
As the night goes on, they race side by side through the crowd like hunters through a forest (he realizes he never truly understood that Wordsworth poem before). The philistines around them are still tracing their stiff little loops, taking care to guide their feet just so… but Spike isn’t part of that world anymore, because destiny took him by the hand and taught him to fly. She lets go of his hand with a laugh, and they lose each other in the growing dark and always find each other again, because there’s only one of her and he feels her inside, a certainty where his heart used to beat.  
  
And he tells her forever and means it.

**Author's Note:**

> I love feedback. Concrit welcome! Let's talk about the history of figure-skating!
> 
> On this awesome blog, there's ice-skating poetry, some of which I referenced: http://skateguard1.blogspot.com/2014/02/patinage-poetry-language-of-ice.html


End file.
